Baby boy shares same womb as mother in breakthrough birth linking three generations

It’s a family bond as revolutionary as it is strong. A new mother is home in Sweden with her infant son after he was born from his grandmother’s donated womb – the same womb she was nurtured in for nine months.

Baby Vincent’s mother had the transplant after losing her uterus to cancer. His grandmother donated her womb to allow her daughter to have a child of her own.

Since the birth, the first baby born to a woman who had a womb transplant, three more baby boys have been born to women with transplanted wombs.

Dr Mats Brannstrom, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at Sahlgrenska Hospital at the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm IVF, first transplanted wombs into women – born without a womb or who lost it to cancer – two years ago. But the birth of Vincent is “one uterus bridging three generations of a family”.

The new mum, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect her family’s identity, says that as her own mother was wheeled in for the transplant she cried and “told her I loved her and thank you for doing this”, The Guardian reports.

“The real unique thing is what me and my mum went through,” she says. “It’s a big thing and he and his grandmother will have this bond for the rest of their lives.”

The baby, born in October 2014, was conceived via in vitro fertilisation using the woman’s eggs and her husband’s sperm. In tribute to the professor who made it all possible, the baby’s middle name is Mats.

“My thought is that he will always know how wanted he was,” the mother says. “Hopefully when he grows up, uterus transplantation (will be) an acknowledged treatment for women like me and he will know that he was part of making that possible.

Dr Brannstrom is planning more womb transplant procedures while the new mother and her husband are contemplating a second child.